


Cursed Forever to Sleep on a Twin Size Mattress

by butwhatifdragons



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Colors, Enemies to Lovers, Episode: s02e01 Under Pressure, Fluff and Angst, Insecurity, Loneliness, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Self-Doubt, Soulmates, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24298420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butwhatifdragons/pseuds/butwhatifdragons
Summary: The colors, they never came.(In which love leaves marks on skin, but Buck's skin is bare.)
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 331





	Cursed Forever to Sleep on a Twin Size Mattress

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to prove to myself that I could write a mostly canon compliant fic before I actually embarked on writing a monster of a mostly canon complaint fic... Lost in the Company of Angels is coming to an end real quick, for me at least (not for you, just yet—I am several chapters ahead), and I've got the urge to write a canon(ish) fic. 
> 
> Some dialogue in here is taken from season 2, episode 1, so credit to the show for that; however, I took some liberties with it for the greater good. 
> 
> Title from "Twin Size Mattress" by the Front Bottoms.

The colors, they never came.

By the time that Buck joined the 118, he had accepted they never would—unless they were in the form of the temporary stains from one-night stands and trysts in the ladder truck. Those came to an end as quickly as the captain’s faith in him, so he was faced with a choice: keep chasing the high of colors swirled on his skin or keep his job.

It wasn’t even a choice.

So, Buck backed off the one-night stands and the men or women that gave him even the most temporary feeling of being loved and instead threw his all into the job. Buck couldn’t control whether people _colored_ him, but he could control whether he lost the one thing that had ever made him feel alive.

Buck kept saving lives.

He just… did it at a distant. He was careful with his attire. He was even more careful touching someone without gloves. The 118 were a tight-knit group, and Buck didn’t need their lack of _coloring_ him to destroy the only sense of _family_ he had ever been lucky enough to know. He told himself the illusion of possibly being _colored_ by Bobby and Chim and Hen was enough.

When he said goodbye to Abby at the airport—when he bit back all of the things he had wanted to say to her—he carefully did not let their bare skin touch. It was enough, he thought, for the possibility that she would _color_ him. His heart was already breaking over the fact that her mother had died and he wasn’t enough of a reason for her to stick around. He didn’t need the added heartache of her touch leaving nothing on his skin.

Life went on.

He lived in Abby’s apartment, had coffee with her ghost of a morning, and went off to save the world in his firefighter uniform. He wore his sleeves long. His hands sweated in his gloves. But he was okay. These people he worked with, they would _color_ him if given the chance.

And then.

Eddie Diaz, the new recruit, blew into the fire station like a wildfire they were trained to soak out, and his arms were stained a bright shade of blue, from his shoulders all the way down to the tips of his fingers, and Buck’s heart broke a little at the sight. Never would Buck know that kind of love—and Buck _hated_ Eddie for it.

He hated Eddie even more when he was introduced to the crew, and by mid-shift, he was already sporting Hen’s yellow and Chim’s green and Bobby’s red, and that was all Buck wanted. It was. He didn’t have it—he _could_ have it, he pretended—and here this new guy was blasting in here like he had been here for years, wearing their colors like he had always been theirs.

“What’s your problem, man?” Eddie had demanded in the gym.

Buck thought about ignoring him. He was so fed up with how everybody worshiped the ground Eddie Diaz walked on that he didn’t even want to look the man’s way. But. There was something magnetic about Eddie. Buck couldn’t not look.

“Okay, you. You’re my problem.”

Anger soared through his veins. He told himself that was what it was, that it wasn’t jealousy. It was pure, unadulterated anger. This was Buck’s fire house. These people were meant to _color_ him, and they hadn’t.

“Your comfort level. You’re—you’re not supposed to just walk in here like you’ve been here for years. It’s meant to be a-a getting to know you period. You’re meant to respect your elders.”

Chim snorted, far away in the corner of the gym. He said something that sounded awfully like _you’re not his elder, Buck_ , but Buck ignored him. Buck’s ears were pounding. Anger did that to a person, got all up in their senses and blinded them. All Buck could see was Eddie smiling at him and shaking his head. Buck hated him.

“You shouldn’t feel threatened by me,” said Eddie. “We’re on the same team.”

“I’m not—I’m not _threatened_ by you,” said Buck, dumbly, but he needed to say it.

He needed Eddie to know that Eddie wasn’t important enough to garner that type of response in Buck. Eddie may have won over the team and gotten their _colors_ , but he wouldn’t get Buck’s. Buck might not have controlled who _colored_ him and who didn’t, but he could certainly control who he _colored_ , and it absolutely wouldn’t be Eddie Diaz.

“Why would I be?”

Eddie’s eyes swept over Buck, from head to toe. They lingered on the bareness of his skin, on the way his arms were unmarked and his legs were as naked as the day he had been born and hung upside down by the doctor and spanked until he cried. Buck’s heart skipped a mean beat. He missed his long sleeves. He missed his gloves.

“Exactly. There’s no need to be,” said Eddie, and he walked out, taking the last word and every bit of dignity that Buck had with him.

The calls that shift were terrible. Buck felt like he was a probie again, good for nothing except getting in the way. He had hidden himself back in his long sleeves, and he had strapped himself back in his gloves, and he was indestructible.

Except.

Eddie knew where to place the line. He knew the early signs of a slow-onset heart attack. He even knew how to remove a live grenade from a man’s thigh.

“I’m in,” Buck had sworn, under the watchful gaze of Bobby.

His heart was pounding in his ears again, and his hands were sweaty in his gloves. He was made to do this. He was made to save people’s lives, and if that included riding second to Eddie Diaz, he would do it. He wouldn’t let Eddie have all of the fun.

Eddie had already taken all of their _colors_.

Bobby was hesitant, but Eddie was already geared up and going in, and Buck was finishing up his own gear, certain that it wouldn’t matter if he put it on right or not. This was either going to go right, or Maddie would get to plan a funeral.

“Besides, you wanted us to bond,” called Buck, over his shoulder as he hurried after Eddie like a dog to his master. “We might end up real close.”

And close, they did.

In the ambulance, there was hardly room to work. Eddie sat side-by-side with Buck, so close their thighs pressed against each other. Buck could feel the heat of it. He swallowed against the longing in his belly.

 _If there were no clothing between them right now, would Eddie_ color _him?_

He focused instead on Eddie’s work, on the steadiness of his hands and the way his whole face scrunched up in concentration as he worked to extract the grenade. He hardly dared to breathe. He held the box ready when Eddie finally released the grenade and flipped the top over it ever so carefully after the grenade softly clattered against the bottom.

He let out the breath he was holding. He met Eddie’s eyes over the box, and in them shined glee, happiness, and victory. Buck wanted to bottle this moment up, so that he could have it for later when he had nothing in the world, except for memories of being useful and saving lives.

The bomb squad awaited them. They took the box with the grenade. Buck and Eddie pushed the gurney toward the hospital, handing it off to the nurses there. Their job was over. Adrenaline hummed in Buck’s veins. Glee, happiness, and victory—they all swirled in Buck’s stomach.

“You’re badass under pressure,” said Eddie.

It took Buck a whole second to realize that Eddie was speaking to him, and when he looked up to meet Eddie’s eyes, he saw admiration in them. Something clicked in Buck’s mind then. It was like this was all he had wanted this whole time: Eddie to notice him and see him do good.

He felt a brush of shyness dance across his heart. He ducked his head.

“Me?”

“Hell yeah. You can have my back any day.”

Buck smiled. It was impossible not to. It was like he had been made to smile in this moment, right here with Eddie, riding the high of saving another person’s life.

“Yeah—or you could… you know, have mine.”

“Hell yeah,” said Eddie, still grinning.

He stepped forward with his arms outstretched, and Buck found himself moving toward Eddie in that very second. Their bodies crashed together. Eddie’s arms wrapped around Buck’s back, and Buck held on to Eddie like he might collapse if not for him. Their cheeks brushed, Buck’s chin resting on Eddie’s shoulder.

Buck could live here in this moment forever, in Eddie’s arms. He could feel the heat pulsating from Eddie’s body. The lights in the parking lot seemed to shine brighter. The whole world seemed crisper, more alive. It was like the universe aligned for this very moment.

Eddie stepped back.

Buck’s breath caught in his lungs, held captive there so it couldn’t escape. His eyes landed on Eddie’s face, on the orange darkening into Eddie’s skin. It was taking hold there, deepening as the seconds passed, forever to stay. Buck’s heartbeats came too slow. His thoughts came even slower, and he realized the _color_ he was looking at was his own.

He reached for it, awed, but Eddie’s fingers found Buck’s cheek first. Fire erupted at his touch, spreading out through Buck’s cheek, and, suddenly, Buck knew: Eddie had _colored_ him.

Eddie’s lips split into another grin. His eyes danced.

“Blue looks pretty damn good on you.”

Buck tugged off his gloves and reached for Eddie’s hand, almost thoughtlessly, and he pulled it into his own. He looked down at them, clasped together, and watched the blue and orange swirl between them, dark and intense and instantaneous like—

 _Soulmates_.

After that, the colors, they didn’t stop coming, and those that came, never left. Buck wore them with pride: Bobby’s red on his shoulder, Hen’s yellow brushed across his arm, Chim’s green stained into the knuckles of his hand, Maddie’s pink smudged across his other cheek, and even Christopher’s bright blue wrapping around his neck.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! ♥


End file.
